


To See You Is Not To Meet You

by yellow_canary



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Bullying, Children, F/F, Sara's plush Sharke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-04 13:24:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14021187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yellow_canary/pseuds/yellow_canary
Summary: Ava almost meets Sara and Nyssa five times. Starting when she was a child to when she finally meets and falls in love with them as an adult. Or the four times Ava saw Sara and Nyssa and the one time she met them.





	1. Starling City 1994

**Author's Note:**

> Nyssasara or Avalance, why not both or Nyssarava.

“Hey! Give her back!” 

“No, I think I’ll keep it.”

Ava looks up from where she’s reading under the tree. The park isn’t usually busy on Sunday mornings, especially in this heat. The perfect escape from her big family.

She quickly spots the source of the shouting. A girl a few years and several inches smaller than her yells at a boy who is at least twelve. He holds a plush gray-blue shark above his head; the little girl tries to reach it but he’s a head taller than her.

“But you have to.” She insists, stomping her foot, her fist balled up against her jean overalls, one of the straps is undone and it sways with her anger. 

“Who’s gonna make me, you? You’re just a baby.” He holds it higher, taunting her and pushing her away with his free hand.

How he can stand to be dressed in black Ava doesn’t know, but she knows there’s no way she’s gonna let him bully her. She jumps up, her book in one hand; she makes a fist with the other and begins to run across the field, but she only makes it a few feet before she stops. 

Another girl about her age, in a pair of whitewashed ripped jeans, runs up to him. She doesn’t hesitate, or slow down, she just punches him square in the jaw. He goes down pretty hard, dropping the shark as the other girl runs to pick it up and hug it close.

“Don’t mess with my sister!” The older girl yells, standing above him. He quickly scrambles in the dust before getting up and running away from them.

“Thank you, Laurel!” The little girl says hugging her sister.

Ava watches them hug and slowly walks back to her place under the tree to resume her reading, but she takes notice when the pair of sisters leave soon after.


	2. London 1996

Ava does not want to be here. Neither in the underground, nor the country. It’s rainy, it’s cold, the kids at school are unfriendly and she’ll never get used to riding in the busy tube. Ava stands next to her mother and holds her sister’s hand. Her mom tries to keep her rowdy brothers occupied as the twins jump and run around the car. She holds Becky’s hand tighter as Becky leans forward to get their mom’s attention.

Ava rolls her eyes and looks around at the other passengers. She notices another girl about her age with sleek black curls tied up in a large red bow. She holds the hand of a man who appears to be her father. They’re both dressed alike in fine black jackets, and everything about her is perfect, from her white bobby socks to her uniform curls.

She catches Ava’s eye and smiles at her, her brown eyes sparkling.

Ava opened her mouth to say hi but was interrupted by the girl’s father tugging at her hand.

“This is our stop, Nyssa.”

“Yes, Father.”

The train slowed down, and everyone prepared for the stop and gathered their things.

“Ava, take Colby’s hand,” her mother says, joining them all together.

The train comes to a stop and the doors open. As people shuffled out she loses sight of Nyssa in the crowd. Her mom pushes them forward, and they’re halfway off the train when someone starts screaming.

Ava looks back to see a man on the ground and a woman crouching next to him.

“Ava don’t look,” Her mother pushes them forward, getting them off the train as fast as possible.

“Mom, what happened to him?” Becky asks.

“Did he die?” Her brother, Celeb asks.

Her mom doesn’t answer their questions as she shuffles them to the walls of the Underground.  Ava grips her siblings hands and she watches as the security guards run forward onto the train.  

She looks around and catches Nyssa’s red bow. She gives Ava a look of fear and surprise as her and father disappeared, and it’s etched in Ava’s memory forever.


	3. Afghanistan 2010

The heat had finally been driven off by the cool night breeze and it seemed everyone on base had come out to enjoy the night.

Ava dribbled the ball around Connors as he tried to block her; she swerved then jumped sending the ball through the hoop.

“I’ll stop you next time, Sharpe.” He said smiling and wiggling his finger at her.

She laughed in response, “Yeah right Connors. Your arms can’t even reach that high.”

The rest of her unit laughed as well, as he stepped back pretending to be hurt by her words. James Connors was her best friend and the only other queer person she knew in the military.

“Hey Sergeant,” he called looking past her shoulder, she turned to see their Sergeant, John Diggle, rushing past the basketball field. “How about you help me show Sharpe how to be a good loser.”

His eyes quickly settled on Ava with an intense focus as he walked towards the group, but rather than anger his features betrayed his worry. “Sharpe, what are you doing here?”

“What do you mean Sir?” she asked. “I’ve been here all evening.”

“I just got a call from the Docs that you’re in the ER with a broken leg.”

“Well, clearly my legs are just fine.”

Diggle nodded at her, the lines on his face fell slightly as worry replaced confusion, “I need you to come with me, hopefully, we can fix this mess.”

“Sure thing, Sarg.” She threw the ball to Connors and fell into step next to Diggle. They walked in silence over to the medical hospital on base. Ava worried about what had happened, did someone steal her I.D. or make a fake one? Why would they use it at the base hospital when the local hospital was only three miles away?

They walked through the door of the hospital and up to the reception desk. “I’m looking for a Dr. Michaels,” Diggle said. “I was paged about a person in my unit, Sergeant Ava Sharpe?”

“Yep, she’s over there with a woman who helped bring her in.” The nurse pointed to a bed across a room. Sure enough, a blond woman sat on the stretcher with her leg in a brace propped up on several pillows.

“Well that can’t be, Sharpe is right here,” Diggle said pointing to Ava.

The nurse gave them both the confused look as Ava held out her I.D. The nurse looked it over, her eyebrows rising more each minute. “I’ll call security and page Dr. Michaels, if you could please wait here I’m sure we can sort this out.”

Ava looked back at the woman who was pretending to be her. She looked like Ava, blonde with blue eyes, smiling and relaxing in the bed. She also studied a woman who the Nurse said helped her. They're too far away for her to make out they're facial structure, but she notes they're hair color and style.

The other woman was wearing a simple black outfit and scarf, she seemed more concerned than the blonde. Her eyes darted around the room and before Ava could look away, their eyes locked. Her concern turned to concentration as she quickly pulled the curtain around them, blocking Ava’s view.

Ava rushed over, knowing they planned to escape, with Diggle hot on her heels. When she opened the curtain, they were gone. She quickly scanned the area and pulled the curtains next to them, but they weren’t there. She looked around the waiting room but she couldn’t see them. There were only several other Army patients and nurses, none matching the two women. They were gone.

“Fuck,” she swore, causing a nurse who was wheeling a patient in front of her to look at her with disdain.

“Let’s keep looking, they can’t just disappear into thin air,” Diggle said.

Ava shook her head; she had a feeling that they were gone for good.

She was proved right a few hours later. The whole based tried in vain to look for them, but they left without a trace. Except for the mounds of paperwork and investigation Ava had to do deal with.


End file.
